


The Start of Something

by lq_traintracks (lumosed_quill)



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, F/F, Grinding, Harrow the Ninth Spoilers (Locked Tomb Trilogy), Kissing, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, brief reference to Harrow/Ianthe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27266527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lumosed_quill/pseuds/lq_traintracks
Summary: What if Harrow went back to that coffee shop?
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 29
Kudos: 174





	The Start of Something

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bogglebeans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bogglebeans/gifts).



> This all spilled out this morning over the course of a couple of hours. Forgive me if there are mistakes, both grammatical and canonical, though the last probably couldn’t be helped because I’m _still_ trying to wrap my mind around what actually happened in HtN. This was inspired by the Eternal Coffee Shop of the Spotless Mind meme shared by the incredibly lovely bogglebeans. And also, this just happens to be her birthday present. Happy birthday to one of the sweetest and most talented people in fandom. I’m so glad you’re into both HP and Locked Tomb! I hope you enjoy this tidbit of nonsense, UST, and (I’m sorry) angst-with-hope.

“Let me guess. You take it black.”

That was what she’d said the first time Harrow had visited the coffee shop, before Abigail had dragged her away like a child, rather than the lieutenant she was, with a curt and demeaning, “Absolutely _not_.”

But maybe it was that statement itself, the departure from her usual— _this isn’t how it happens_ —that had allowed for the glitch in the first place. The glitch that, like a tether from point A to point Z, led Harrow back.

Harrow’s not stupid. She is so far from stupid, in fact, that it’s been a real bitch keeping herself under for as long as she’s needed to be there. Her brain is a leaky, brilliant sieve. Every sword-molesting upchuck, every ghastly nosebleed (and ear bleed and other places for that matter) drained a neuronal swamp which cleared the way for…

“I thought you were on a strict no-battery-acid diet,” she says, flicking the towel from over her shoulder to wipe down the perpetually clean counter.

Harrow opens her mouth to speak. She does. Really, it will be any minute now. 

The coffee adept smiles at her. Because the coffee adept always smiles at her. And all Harrow can manage this time is a garbled and weak, “Frr-rrap?”

A ginger eyebrow goes up, and Abigail is there, right on time. “Honestly, Harrowhark.”

And then, once more, she’s gone.

That was Harrow’s third visit. And as she was saying, Harrow is not remotely stupid. She never returns to the ball, nor to Cavalier status. Dear God, who but the most wretched masochist would want to experience the handling of that sword in unreality and reality alike? Not that she isn’t that masochist. She supposes she is. And speaking of unreality, this is something Harrow knows as well. Exactly which unreality she’s experiencing isn’t quite clear, but that hardly matters, does it? Whether she’s in a hospital gown lain atop her two-hander or run through with someone else’s, it hardly makes a difference. 

All she wants is to go back there. Even if another self worked extraordinarily hard to prevent that very thing. 

So she goes back a fourth time, this time with lieutenants Tettares and Chartur scampering behind her as though they’ve corralled Harrow into a conspiracy of their own making. They make good tools, perfect for the job that needs done. _That’s what she said._

Harrow knows, if she can just get a name out of her…

“Well, hello there.” That smirk. (Twin giggles behind her. "Get the frr-rrap again.” “No, don’t harass her, Jeannie. They need to get this right for once.”) 

“Do you think you’ll place an order today? That would be new and different.” That dirty towel flicked onto her shoulder this time. And _oh_ that shoulder.

Harrow, gulping a swallow, manages to somehow nod. (Snickering at her back again, elbows thrown into ribs with their glee.)

Across the counter she smiles and says, “Alright then,” as though she doesn’t believe for a moment that Harrow will succeed at this. 

Then she crosses her arms. And Harrow _dies_. It doesn’t even take Abigail this time. The twins are no help to her. No one can save her from this. Harrow, of her own accord, just… melts into nothingness at the sight of a coffee adept’s biceps.

The fifth time, Harrow arms herself. Literally. She strides down the hall, down the set of metal stairs, her boots grinding so hard she nearly sets off sparks. She’s got two guns strapped to her back, their barrels crossed between her shoulder blades. At her hip, her rapier, because she’s combined two of her unrealities into one, taking the strengths from each and quite possibly both their weaknesses as well, but that remains to be seen, and Harrow doesn’t let the thought stop her.

She marches into the coffee shop, elbows her way through the queue to offended cries of, “Hey!” and “Watch it!” and one indistinct mutter of something like “...bone gremlin.”

She gets to the front, doesn’t let herself actually look at the coffee adept at all (this, she thinks, is key), and she grinds out, “”I’ll take a large coffee with cream, that is if it hasn’t curdled from the sourness of your face.” She’s like a dickhead little boy pulling pigtails, and she knows it, but she doesn’t think she’ll be able to stay otherwise. And something about making it a fight comes easy. There’s a familiarity there she finds gently comforting. More than. It’s like water after a long, hideous drought.

“Well, fuck you too,” says the adept, but her strong (hell, but they’re strong) hands reach for the cup and the coffee spigot. 

And when it’s all done, and Harrow has still not raised her gaze, her hand clutching the… pommel? or something? of her rapier like she’ll throw down for a duel if her coffee’s not hot enough, the adept clears her throat and names a price.

Which is when Harrow manages to be actually quite stupid for once in her life and says, incomprehensively, “My name is Harrowhark Nonagesemus,” looking right in the woman’s eyes now, “and I forgot my wallet.”

“Uh, okay. I really shouldn’t let you have this then, Harrowhark Nonagesimus.” But she’s sliding the cup over. Like the first time, their fingers touch as Harrow takes it.

“What is your name?” Harrow asks (after five bloody tries at this, Lord).

And the coffee adept smiles, that long, slow one that has Harrow’s skin flushing all over. She says, “Ortus. Ortus Nigenad.”

_This is not how it happens._

Harrow doesn’t even get to taste the coffee before she’s gone.

The sixth time’s the charm, isn’t that how the saying goes? She doesn’t bring her weapons this round. Nor the twins. It’s not crowded today. Just two privates at a distant table talking over a shared muffin. (Is the muffin really necessary?) Harrow has Ortus (???) to herself. And Ortus is making Harrow pancakes. 

“I didn’t realize this was also a diner,” Harrow says.

“It wasn’t.”

“Oh.”

The coffee adept flicks a look at her over her shoulder as she works. “I just like pancakes.”

“Do you?”

“Who doesn’t, Nonagesimus.”

There’s something about hearing her name from this person. Something that wants to loosen Harrow’s hold on sanity. Or insanity, as the case may be. If she _is_ indeed run through with a sword at this moment in time, it is this voice saying her name before she bleeds out in some other realm that she desperately wants to hear.

“Why are you called Ortus?” Because fuck it’s weird.

Ortus shrugs. “Because changing the name of a file is easier than deleting it.”

Beyond strange, but okay.

“I’m going to call you something else,” Harrow decides. Ortus flips a pancake onto a plate, and Harrow says, “I’m going to call you Griddle.”

When she turns and catches Harrow’s eye, the bronze gleam there is like a super nova, overtaking all the blackness that wants to pull Harrow under and keep her there.

“No, no, no,” says Abigail.

She tries it over and over again. She constructs it multiple ways for unending results. Once she brings Tridentarius with her, and it provokes a fight so harsh Harrow fears for Ianthe’s real-world self. There was just so much _blood_.

So, clearly jealousy isn’t the way to go.

She tries ordering different things, to no avail. She either drops them and ejects herself into a different fantasy that way, or she tastes it and, because her brain has never experienced actual coffee, she short-circuits. Or the shop is too busy for the woman to properly engage with her. But those times are kind of nice. She can watch the adept work from across the room. Watch her flirt with other customers while Harrow feels that roiling hot mess in her stomach. Yet somehow even that is worth staying for. 

She just wants to stay. Anything that lets her do that…

Twenty, thirty, a hundred reboots. Sometimes Griddle remembers her, and other times it’s the first time they’ve laid eyes on each other. Round about number one hundred six, Harrow is ordering her coffee like a pro, and even when Griddle winks at her, she doesn’t melt. Not into a new reality anyway. She melts. And she stays.

It’s time number one hundred thirty-seven that they touch. Harrow’s had just about as much coffee as she can stand, so when the adept flings the towel onto her shoulder and says, “What’ll it be this time, bone boss?” (Because she’s a necromancer and long ago gave up the whole Cohort lieutenant nonsense.) Then when Harrow says nothing, “You’d probably prefer something like, I don’t know, bone goddess, maybe? Marrow lord. Femur lov—”

But Harrow has come halfway over the counter to wrap her hand around her adept’s neck, to lean in and press her lips to those still speaking their beautiful inanities. And, though she’s new to this, only having practiced on Ianthe the one (and a half?) time(s), she knows how to shut a hot woman up with her tongue.

It doesn’t take too long for Griddle to pick up and drag Harrow’s much smaller body over the counter and into her arms. Harrow’s feet don’t touch the ground, or barely skim there, as the woman kisses her hard, those powerful hands running up her back, into her hair, their mouths parting on one another. Harrow’s heart throbs in her chest, sending scalding flares of heat up and down her spine.

“I was wondering if we’d ever get to this.” Words against her open mouth. 

“Shut up, Griddle.”

And they kiss until another part of her subconscious drags her away kicking and screaming.

She’s shy about it, the next time. It’s hard to tell if Griddle remembers or if this is one of those times she’s new to it. Though not everything’s been completely erased. She knows _something_. It’s in her face, her dying sun eyes.

Again, there’s no one else in the shop. Harrow doesn’t know why there ever was. She likes the privacy. The quiet. The sound of the woman’s chuckle over the metallic screeching of the espresso machine.

This time, with no prompting, the woman discards her apron, comes out from behind the counter, and sits at a table with her.

“None for you?” Harrow asks, sipping the plain black coffee she’s reluctantly come to enjoy. It tastes like her. Like stopping time, all the universe her voice.

“I can’t pollute this temple,” Griddle says. “I mean, do I need to flex for you again?”

Harrow blushes. It would make for an embarrassing number of times, a few of which were spied on by a couple of horny teenagers if she’s not mistaken. “Keep it in your pants, Nonius.”

The woman quirks a look at her. Harrow keeps trying different names out on her, none of them quite right, this one included.

(Harrow prefers not to acknowledge how deeply and irrevocably she wants in said pants, though.)

“Can you leave this place?” Harrow suddenly needs to know.

She thinks about it. “I don’t think _you_ can.”

“Mm.” It makes sense. Sort of. “I don’t want to leave.”

“But you always do. You always run away from me, on those short little legs.”

“I don’t run exactly.” She sips her coffee slowly, like they’ve got time. Like she’s a woman of leisure. She’ll read the morning paper as the sun rises on some boring planet, lighting up the water as it flows by, going nowhere and everywhere.

_The river._

“Where did you go just now?” Griddle asks. Her hand snakes across the table and takes Harrow’s bloodless fingers in her own, so warm with life.

“Nowhere,” Harrow lies. She can feel its cold. The muck of it. Already it’s at her ankles.

“Don’t,” says Griddle. She gives a little tug.

Harrow stands and takes the two steps around the table so that she’s standing before her. Griddle pushes her chair back, her long legs spread wide. Another small tug on Harrow’s hand, and Harrow is in her lap, straddling her hips.

“Stay,” says the woman with the eyes like a lifetime of memories. She pulls Harrow’s hips snugly to her own, and Harrow goes indecently wet. “Wrap your arms around my neck,” she murmurs, close, and Harrow obeys. _She’s scratched this girl’s skin… had her blood under her nails…_

Gently, like they’ve got forever, they grind. So slow they’re hardly moving, their eyes caught on the fresh details of one another’s faces. Harrow’s hands slip up the bristly hairs at the back of the woman’s skull and up into the longer strands.

“If I kiss you this ends,” Harrow says, a fact and a lament.

“Those are your rules, darlin’.” A shift of Griddle’s hips, a gasp from Harrow’s mouth. “Hey, that reminds me.”

Harrow frowns. “What.”

“Is that trident-wielding dick the only one allowed to call you ‘Harry’?”

Their lips so close… Harrow squirming with want in her lap.

“You can call me anything. Just don’t stop.” Then, sweet with her heartache, “Don't go.”

“Oh, I’m around,” she says with that smirk that makes Harrow want to punch her and kiss her and pin her down to the floor and have her and then be had by her.

_The sword through her middle… the frantic stitching of her bones around it, embracing the blade like a sheath…_

_And the syllables. The three syllables…_

_Oh God._

“In a few seconds, you’re going to wake up, Harrow,” she says.

And Harrow knows it. Knows it like it’s already happened. The waking, the realization, the tears like they’ll never stop.

But Griddle says, “You haven’t lost me. You’ll never lose me, you angry, sad, little fuck.”

Clutching onto her now. Her cavalier, her swordswoman, her anchor to everything. “How do you know? Oh God, Gideon.”

At this she shrugs. She’s known her own name all along. “I’m not God’s kid for nothing.”

And then, as the river rises and the flood of tears awaits… as Abigail sits patiently for Harrow to show up and break yet again, Griddle says, “Kiss me. Kiss me and let it be the start of something. Not the end.”

“I hate you,” Harrow says, gripping her hair hard.

“Yeah, I know,” she replies, like she hates Harrow too and that that hate was never what it seemed and still isn’t. “Kiss me anyway, bitch.”

It’s a kiss that impales them both.

And inside it, the horizon. Always coming, like a revenant. Something whispered, a curse, a binding, ever bright. A way to find her again, but first she must let go.


End file.
